Obama Cabinet has the ”best cabinet basketball team in history”

Chicago, Dec.17 (ANI): Everyone knows that US President-elect Barack Obama is obsessed with sports, and to prove it, he has assembled what he proudly calls ”the best basketball-playing cabinet in American history”. According to The Telegraph, the latest to join the ranks is Arne Duncan, 44, Obama’’s education secretary. Duncan is a 6ft 5in tall former co-captain of Harvard’’s basketball team who also played professionally in Australia. General James Jones, 64, the new national security adviser, stands at 6ft 4in and was a forward for the Georgetown University team, the Hoyas. Eric Holder, 57, the nominee for attorney general, was co-captain of the Peglegs, his high school team in New York and also played at Columbia University. Susan Rice, 45, the new United Nations ambassador, is just 5ft 3in tall but was a star basketball player at National Cathedral School in Washington, where she was nicknamed Spo short for Sporting. Paul Volcker, ex-chairman of the Federal Reserve, who has been selected as chairman of Obama’’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, played basketball for Princeton Obama, 47, himself was an avid basketball player at school in Honolulu, where he was nicknamed Barry O”Bomber because of his devastating “jump shot” and would dribble and bounce a ball as he walked between classes. He struggled to make the starting line-up of his champion school team but has improved his game further over the years and still plays regularly. During the 21-month election campaign, Obama developed a ritual of playing a game of basketball every election day. Duncan, currently chief executive of Chicago public schools, played with him on November 4, the day he won the White House. Obama has just three main cabinet secretaries still to appoint. So far he has put together the most ethnically diverse cabinet in American history. Though he has yet to follow through on his promise to appoint Republicans, he is keeping on Robert Gates, a career intelligence officer, as Defense Secretary. Among his selections are Holder, who is black; commerce secretary Bill Richardson, who is Hispanic; veterans affairs secretary Eric Shinseki, who is Japanese-American; energy secretary Steven Chu, who is a Chinese-American Nobel prize winner; and several women, including Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. (ANI)